A few things that I miss the most so far: incandescent light bulbs. (I know this must sound silly, but trust me, when you're in fluorescent light all day and night, you really miss the warm burn of the filament!) Having the ability to buy something in the grocery store or restaurant and know what you're getting! And third: a Tall Caramel Frappe Freeze from Wilde Roast Cafe (Bill will know what I'm talking about) those suckers are so good!
Anyway, Amanda and I are settling in pretty well and learning more and more each day. Yesterday (Sunday) we hiked up a nearby mountain (a shallow one) with a new friend we have made. His name is Kang U-Seok; he's the owner of the building that our school is in and drops in at the end of the day. He very generously drove us to the base of the mountain, and then hiked all the way up with us and showed us spots along the way. There's a bit of a language barrier there, but we are learning more Korean each day, and Kang is eager to sharpen his English. Along the way up the mountain we passed a small Buddhist temple, a whole bunch of sweet persimmon trees, some really big and scary and ugly and scary spiders, and to our surprise quite a few middle aged locals that seemed to be hiking around as their norm. I must say that the age of these guys was probably close to that of my parents, and let's just say I don't think I would see them hiking around the mountains like the Koreans were. I'm very impressed with the fitness Koreans have. Anyway, we spent a few hours hiking the mountain with Kang, taking a lot of photos, and keeping a look out for spiders. Did I mention they were big and scary. It was a gorgeous day for hiking, warm in the sun, cool in the shade, and in the mid '60's (Fahrenheit of course).
Kang also came over to our apartment tonight so he could teach us how to use the thermostat. It's been a little chilly at night and we thought we knew how to operate our fancy in-floor radiant heat system, but apparently we didn't. We now know the system of "push this button and this button, and when this light is on you're good; and to change the temperature do this." When the day comes that we can read Korean perhaps it will make more sense to us, but at least for now we have a warm floor and aren't chilly anymore!
Our shoe rack was also delivered this evening. As you may know, it is very customary for people to remove their shoes when entering a home or restaurant, so naturally it is customary to have a shoe rack at the entrance. Because our apartment is so new, said shoe rack was not yet in place, so a few days ago a couple gentleman came with a tape measure, eyed up the size of our foyer and left. Tonight, a few other gentleman returned with not just a shoe rack, but a whole shoe wardrobe! We were expecting some sort of open shelved piece of furniture with a few shelves, but what we got was much more. It measures probably 4' wide, 10" deep and perhaps 6.5' tall and comes with three full height doors. We have room for our shoes and still have about 75% of the thing open for some much needed storage. It's great! Unfortunately, our small entrance foyer space just became even smaller, but that's ok, we'll deal with it.
Below are some photos from our hike up the nearby mountain and our shoe rack:
View of Jinyeong-ri from beginning of hike
Small Buddhist temple nestled into base of mountain
Path we walked up near the base of the mountain
Big, scary, ugly and scary spider. One of many
A chestnut shell posing with Amanda
Amanda and our friend Kang trying to figure out why someone piled up a bunch of rocks
Pavillion at the top of the mountain
The Korean landscape
A Praying Mantis we stumbled upon in the middle of the path
Motorized-basket-on-track for transporting sweet persimmon
Sweet Persimmon
Our spanky-new shoe / storage cupboard!
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